2016 Roundup

Originally Posted December 30th 2016

Thanks to all of you who have followed my blog this year! It was a busy year and I didn’t get as many posts out as years past, but you all have been as supportive as ever. I’m excited about the things I’ve been able to do with the new site this month, and am looking forward to a great 2017. But first, a look back.

Most Read Posts of 2016

I wrote 15 posts in 2016, down from my pace of 19 in 2015 and 25 in 2014. Some of that was an unusually busy work year, and some of the time I normally put into the site went to the redesdign. I also sat on a few articles that didn’t turn out that great when actually written out. But I made a good run at the end and hopefully will be writing more in 2017. The most read posts from this site in 2016 were:

Reusable Code Patterns - This article was a high level look at the ways you can approach sharing code for 2 different use cases.

Honorable Mention

ES6 Patterns: Converting Callbacks to Promises - This article was technically written in 2015, but it was published during the last week of the year and thus wasn’t eligible to be included last year. However it has proven quite popular. This was my attempt at a straightforward explanation of how to convert a callback based API to a Promise based one.

Code I wrote in 2016

Most of the code I wrote this year was for my work at Windsor Circle. But I have spent some time getting this blog up and running, and anyone interested in what it takes to get a fully functioning blog running on Gatsby is welcome to take a look at the github repo.

Languages, Libraries, and Technologies I started using in 2016

Jest is a JavaScript testing library that I started using this year. It’s fantastic, and I’ve had the opportunity to write and speak about it a few times already.

Gatsbyjs now powers this blog. Gatsby is a ReactJS based static site generator, and it has been a pleasure to work with.

My team started using Docker this year. It’s been a mixed bag for me personally, but I love the idea of what it provides

Languages, Libraries, and Technologies I stopped using in 2016

Despite my affection for Marionette, I’m no longer actively using it other than in some legacy code for my work application

Podcasts I started listening to in 2016

Software I started using in 2016

Google Inbox + Airmail for email: I’m not sure I’m ever going to be happy with an email client, but I’m currently using the combo of Google Inbox on iOS and Airmail on MacOS. Post Mailbox, Inbox is my favorite iOS mail app. On desktop though I like to have universal inbox and tight integration with the rest of the operating system, so I use Airmail, which is less bad than the rest of the MacOS mail clients I’ve tried

Copied: Copied is a clipboard manager for MacOS (and sort of iOS). It’s been great to be able to keep multiple things in the clipboard at once, and be able to go back and get something if I blow it away. I’m not a power user. I haven’t really figured out a reason to use their lists features, or their iOS client, but it has been great for the limited things I use it for.

Homebrew Cask: I’ve used homebrew for a while. But being able to install GUI apps as easily as command line apps has been pretty amazing. If you are on OSX and don’t use homebrew to install pretty much everything, you’re missing out. Of course the real effect is that it makes me dread and hate the Mac App Store even more.

The New York Times App: Ok this is a bit of a cheat since this is more about content than software, but if you’re out of touch on what is going on in the world, there’s never been a better time to support a good source of news and reporting, whichever outlet is your preference.

Software I stopped using in 2016

Nothing I’m aware of, though I am currently checking out Bear and Annotate as potential replacements for Evernote and Skitch.